Hawthorne's first diary, with an account of its discovery and loss

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
PROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Mitntu ^* Sage

1891

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Cornell University Library
PS 1881. A3

Hawthorne's f rst diary.with an 4iccount

3 1924 022 247 930

Cornell University
Library

The original of this book is in
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HAWTHORNE'S FIRST
DIARY

WLitl) an ^tconnt of its
^ttitalierp aria toes

BY

SAMUEL T. PICKARD

AUTHOR OF THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF
JOHN GREENLEAF WUITTIER

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

1897

COPYRIGHT 1897
BY SAMUEL T. PICKARD
ALL- RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

A DIARY kept by Nathaniel Haw-
^^- thome during his residence at
Raymond, Maine, came to light in Vir-
ginia during the late civil war, and fell
into the hands of a colored man named
William Symmes, who, by a curious
chance, was a companion of Hawthorne
in his fishing and gunning sports on
the shores of Lake Sebago. Symmes
said he had the book from a Maine sol-
dier whom he found in hospital. Be-
cause of his boyish friendship for Haw-
thorne, he so prized the Diary that he
could not be induced to part with it.
After holding it several years, he sent
extracts from it to a Maine newspaper,

PREFACE

carefully avoiding, however, to furnish
an address by which he or his treasure
could be found. It has been ascer-
tained that he died at Pensacola, Flor-
ida, October 28, 1871. I have no doubt
the Diary was in his possession at the
time of his death, and it is reasonable
to suppose that it is still somewhere in
existence. It is my hope that the pub-
lication of this little volume may lead
to the second finding of it.

There is so much of romantic inter-
est attaching to the story of the life of
the mulatto Symmes, that I venture to
tell it, in connection with his account
of his youthful association with Haw-
thorne. The materials for this sketch
have been gathered with much care
from many sources. Every word of the
Diary, preserved by the copying of

PREFACE

Symmes, i& given in these pages, and
I have added explanatory and confirma-
tory notes.

It is only fair to say that there have
been serious doubts in regard to the
authenticity of the notebook, caused
by the at first inexplicable mystery
which enveloped the conduct of the
man Symmes. I believe, however, that
the internal evidence of the master's
hand will convince all who read these
pages that they have before them a gen-
uine work by one of the greatest of
American authors. Since the death of
Symmes, facts have come to light which
partially explain much that was before
mysterious and even suspicious.

I wish here to express my sense of
obligation to Mr. Richard C. Manning,
of Salem, a cousin of Hawthorne's, who

PREFACE

has assisted me in gathering the infor-
mation here given to the public. He
has in his possession many of the early
letters of his cousin, and from these I
am permitted to copy, for comparison
of style with the Diary, and also to
show Hawthorne's great love for his
Maine home.

S. T. P.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGB

I. The Home in Raymond i

II. The Story of William Symmes . . 22

III. Extracts from Diary 49

Postscript 100

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Union Church, Raymond, Mb. Formerly resi-
dence of Hawthorne family, from a photograph
taken in 1891, and now reproduced by permission
of the Lothrop Publishing Co Prontisfiece

The Images, Sebago Lake. From a photograph
procured for this work by Mr. C. O. Stickney,
Bridgton. Hawthorne's Cave is at the right of the
rocks represented in this picture 10

Flat Rock, Thomas Pond : Hawthorne's favorite
fishing place. From a photograph taken in 1891,
m possession of the Manning family, Salem ... 32

Thomas Pond, Rattlesnake Mountain in the dis-
tance. From a photograph taken from Flat Rock
in 1891, in possession of the Manning family, Salem 8S

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

A

CHAPTER I

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

LL who have attempted to write the isolation
life of Hawthorne make little of "f^^^

what he himself considered a most im- '^'^^
portant portion of it, viz., his residence
as a boy among the lakes and woods of
Maine. His biographers do not agree
among themselves as to the years which
he spent in whole or in part in Ray-
mond ; they say so little of this part of
his life, that few readers would realize
that practically during the whole of his
"teens" his home was in a little hamlet
in a peculiarly isolated region, surrounded
by primeval forests, and in the midst of

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

a lake country then little known to the
outside world. He has himself said that
he came to the shore of Lake Sebago
when only eight or nine years old. He
certainly had there a home — one of his
homes — until he was about twenty-one.
His fitting for college necessitated his
coming out of this seclusion, and he
prosecuted his preliminary studies for
the most part in Salem, his native city.
But during his vacations he came back
every year to his home in the wilderness.
His whole future life was so much influ-
enced by his peculiar surroundings while
a boy, that I think the story of his Maine
residence deserves fuller treatment than it
has as yet received. Some extracts from
a diary kept by him in his boyhood, the
full story of which is now for the first
time told, give us a glimpse of his youth-
ful environment which must interest all
who have come under the spell of the
genius displayed in his maturer work.
His father, a shipmaster, died of yel-

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

low fever at Surinam, when he was four His
years old. His mother went at once into another
strict seclusion, and shunned society to
the end of her long life, more than forty
widowed years. She was therefore quite
ready to agree to the suggestion of her
brother, Robert Manning, to go into the
Maine wilderness with her little family,
a few years after the death of her hus-
band. Nathaniel received an injury to
his foot when eight or nine years of age,
and was obliged to use crutches for a
time. He later had an illness which
compelled him to resume his crutches.
As soon as he was strong enough he was
taken to his new home. His uncle Rob-
ert, who was at that time unmarried, paid
the expenses of his education, including
his college course. He went back and
forth between Salem and Raymond, from
about 1813 to 1825, when he graduated
from Bowdoin College. The location of
this Maine college is in the same county
with Raymond.

3

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

In a slight autobiographical sketch pre-
pared by Hawthorne in 1853, he has this
His own to say of his life in Raymond : " When I
account ^as eight or nine years old, my mother,
"^ " with her three children, took up her resi-
dence on the banks of the Sebago Lake,
in Maine, where the family owned a large
tract of land ; and here I ran quite wild,
and would, I doubt not, have willingly
run wild till this time, fishing all day
long, or shooting with an old fowling-
piece; but reading a good deal, too, on
the rainy days, especially in Shakespeare
and 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and any
poetry or light books within my reach,
Those were delightful days ; for thai part
of the country was wild then, with only
scattered clearings, and nine tenths of it
primeval woods. . . . Having spent so
much of my boyhood and youth away
from my native place, I had very few ac-
quaintances in Salem, and during the nine
or ten years that I spent there, I doubt
whether so much as twenty people in the
4

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

town were aware of my existence. . . ,
I would skate all alone on Sebago Lake,
with the deep shadows of the icy hills on
either hand. When I found myself far
away from home, and weary with the ex- Winter
haustion of skating, I would sometimes '^'^^
take refuge in a log cabin, where half
a tree would be burning on the broad
hearth. I would sit in the ample chim-
ney, and look at the stars through the
great aperture through which the flames
went roaring up. Ah, how well I recall
the summer days, also, when with my
gun I roamed at will through the woods
of Maine ! How sad middle life looks to
people of erratic temperament ! Every-
thing looks beautiful in youth, for all
things are allowed to it then."

Julian Hawthorne says that his father
told him of many boyish experiences on
the great Sebago Lake ; how he used to
skate there in winter, and how, one day,
he followed for a great distance, armed
with his fowling-piece, the tracks of a
S

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

black bear, but without being able to
overtake him. He was a good deal of a
sportsman, and had all the fishing and
hunting he wanted.

In a letter to James T. Fields, written
in 1863, Hawthorne says: "I lived in
Maine like a bird in the air, so perfect
was the freedom I enjoyed. But it was
there I first got my cursed habits of soli-
tude." This sentence of itself shows his
own opinion of the biographical value of
his boyish experience. It is the main
object of this work to supply the link his
biographers have missed.
The lake A brief description of the region in
region which Hawthorne spent so much of his
youth, and of the places he mentions in
his diary, may be given here. The town
of Raymond is on the northeastern shore
of Lake Sebago, and sends a long, curv-
ing cape into its waters. This is known
as Raymond Cape ; it is four miles long,
and one mile in width. Its curve in-
closes on its southeastern side a body of
6

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

water called Jordan Bay. On its north-
western side is Dingley Bay with its
fourteen islands, which receives the wa-
ters of Dingley Brook ; this brook is only
about a mile in length, and is the outlet
of Thomas Pond, a little lake, perhaps a
mile wide. Sebago Lake, formerly called
the Great Pond, is the last and largest
of a chain of navigable lakes, thirty-one
miles in length. It is itself fourteen
miles long and eight miles broad. There
is a series of smaller lakes, several of
them larger than Thomas Pond, within
the area of the town of Raymond. They
have been given such names as Great
Rattlesnake, Little Rattlesnake, and Pan-
ther. The lofty head and rugged shoul-
ders of Rattlesnake Mountain tower
above these lakes and over wide meadows
covered with a heavy growth of white
oak.

The house occupied by Hawthorne's
mother was near the outlet of Dingley Dingley
Brook, and on the opposite side of the ^^""^
7

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

brook was the residence of her brother,
Richard Manning. The store and mOl
often mentioned in Hawthorne's journal,
from which we are to give extracts, were
close at hand ; a fall of fifteen feet in the
brook gives a serviceable water-power at
this point. The favorite fishing-place of
young Hawthorne was at the head of the
brook, where it flows from Thomas Pond.
The large flat rock on which he sat goes
by the name of " Nat's Rocki" It was
the view from this point to which Consul
Hawthorne referred in his talk with his
old playmate, Symmes, when they met
on a street in Liverpool. Among the
Places places mentioned in the diary are " Pulpit
mentioned Rock," " The Images," " Frye's Island,"
in diary g^^d " Muddy River." The great boulder,
somewhat resembling a pulpit, is a mile
from the Hawthorne house, easterly, on
the road to Portland. At the southern
extremity of the long narrow cape, pro-
jecting into Sebago Lake, is a picturesque
promontory known as " The Images ; "
8

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

this is five miles southerly from the lit-
tle hamlet which was the home of Haw-
thorne's boyhood. It was on the road
between these points that the Tarbox
tragedy occurred, which, according to
Symmes, was celebrated in verse by the
young poet. Some figures painted by
Indians were formerly to be seen upon
the cliffs at the extremity of the cape.
These were " The Images." A mass of '^The im-
rocks rises perpendicularly to the height "•^"
of about sixty feet, " then slopes upward,
in jagged, broken shapes, to a still fur-
ther height of thirty feet, with a few
spots of greensward, where scraggy pines
and stunted birches struggle for exist-
ence, seemingly out of the solid rock."
The water at the foot of the cliff is
eighty-five feet deep. The legend is that
Captain Frye, pursued by Indians, made
a desperate leap from this cliff, and swam
across to Frye's Island, where he con-
cealed himself from the Indians in the
dense forest. There is a cave at the
9

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

water line of the cliff, now called Haw-
thorne's Cave ; a boat can sail into this
cave twenty-five feet. It is said that this
was a favorite retreat of Hawthorne's.
He mentions a visit to this cave in his
diary.

Off the end of the cape, at a point
nearly central in the lake, and visible
from all its shores, is Frye's Island, with
its thousand acres of primeval woods.
At the northwestern corner of the lake,
nearly west of Dingley Bay, is the
mouth of "Muddy River," graphically
described by Hawthorne, in his account
of the fishing expedition. Midway be-
tween Dingley Brook and Muddy River
Song^o is the outlet of the famous Songo River,
which has been celebrated in Longfel-
low's verse, and in the prose of many
noted tourists. This exceedingly crooked
river, doubling upon itself many times,
connects Sebago Lake and Brandy Pond,
and gives a peculiar zest to the naviga-
tion of these waters : —

Hiver

TJIE JMAGJ;S. .SLUAGO LAKE

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

" Nowhere such a devious stream,
Save in fancy or in dream,
Winding slow through bush and brake,
Links together lake and lake."

Richard Manning was the resident Hisun-
proprietor and manager of the consider- "^^^
able tract of land in Raymond owned by
his family. He buUt for himself a large,
square mansion, with a hip roof, in the
style that was then the fashion in his
native Essex County. It was much finer
in all its appointments than any house
in that region. His brother Robert fre-
quently visited Raymond, but kept the
old home in Salem. When their sister,
Mrs. Hawthorne, lost her husband, Rob-
ert Manning assumed the care of the
orphaned family. As the widow desired
seclusion, he built for her at Raymond a
house as large as Richard's, and in simi-
lar style, except that it had not a hip roof.
Hawthorne was eight or nine years old,
as we have seen, when he first came to
Maine. It was when he was ten years old,

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

The Haw- in 1814, that the house was built for his
thorne mother. He did not Hve there continu-
""" ously, but for several months each year,
until he graduated from Bowdoin College
at the age of twenty-one. His mother
and sisters were in their country home
during most of the time when he was
pursuing his studies at Salem and Bruns-
wick. Mrs. Hawthorne had a flower gar-
den, and a fine young orchard of apple-
trees which were kept neatly trimmed and
whitewashed. A row of butternut-trees
also ornamented the place. After her
return to Salem, the house was occupied
as a stage tavern. By the will of Richard
Manning, who died a few years later, it
was provided that a church be built in
the vicinity of his residence. His widow
married Francis Radoux, a Frenchman,
who suggested that this item of the will
might be executed by remodeling the
Hawthorne house into a church, as it was
too large a house for any family likely to
want it. This was done, but the in-
12

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

tended economy was not realized ; for
Radoux found that the cost of remodel-
ing exceeded that which a new and more
suitable meeting-house would have in-
volved. The massive chimneys, which
characterized all the dwellings of that
period, were removed, and the floor be-
tween the two stories, leaving only the
outer shell of the building hallowed by
so many memories. As there was no
society to take charge of the church, it
was dedicated as a free meeting-house,
open to clergymen of all denominations ;
and as "what is everybody's business is
nobody's," there was no one to take care
of the edifice now doubly sacred. For
a time it seemed going to ruin, but now
it is painted white and kept in excellent
repair, both as to exterior and interior,
and makes a neat and comfortable place
of worship.

A gentleman who when a boy lived Amigh-
near the Hawthornes, was a playmate of *"'''•' ""•
Nathaniel's, and who is mentioned by i""""""'
13

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

name in the diary from which extracts
are to be found in another chapter, more
than a quarter of a century ago gave
the present writer his impressions of the
family. He said : —

"Mrs. Hawthorne was a feeble wo-
man, and withal very reserved. She was
a pious woman, and a minute observer
of religious festivals, fasts, feasts, and
Sabbath days. She was inclined, it
was thought by her neighbors, to be
somewhat aristocratic. But not so with
Nat. He was a pleasant, lively, fun-
loving boy, and had no enemies. He
did much to make their home in Maine
attractive."

Mr. Richard C. Manning, of Salem,
who is a son of Robert Manning, the
uncle who defrayed the expenses of Haw-
thorne's education, has in his possession
a large collection of memorials of his dis-
tinguished cousin, including many let-
ters he wrote to his mother and sisters.
From some of these, which refer to his
14

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

life in Raymond, I am kindly permitted
by Mr. Manning to quote. I give these
specimens of his early letters for the
purpose of comparison with the extracts
from the diary of the same period, to be
found in another chapter, as doubts have
been expressed in regard to the genuine-
ness of the diary.

On the 24th of March, 18 19, he wrote
from Raymond to his uncle Robert, in
Salem : —

Dear Uncle, — I suppose you have Seepage
not heard of the death of Mr. Tarbox and ^9
his wife, who were frozen to death on
Wednesday last. They were brought
from the Cape on Saturday, and buried
from Captain Dingley's on Sunday. The
snow is going off very fast, and I don't
think we shall have much more sleighing.
I hope we shall not, for I am tired of
winter. You ordered me to write as well
as I could, but this is bad paper. I am
writing with a bad pen, and am in a
IS

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

hurry, as I am going to Portland at noon
with Mr. Leach.

Your affectionate nephew,

Nathaniel Hathorne.
P. S. This paper is two cents a sheet.

Homesick. On the 26th of July, 1 8 19, he* wrote
at Salem £j.qjjj Salem to his uncle Robert in Ray-
mond : " I know it is best for me to be
up here, as I have no time to lose in get-
ting my schooling. Sometimes I do have
very hard fits of homesickness. I wish
when you come, you would bring Ebe
(his sister Elizabeth) with you, not for
her sake, for I do not think she would be
half so well contented here as in Ray-
mond ; but for mine, for I have nobody
to talk to but - . . and it seems lone-
some here. There is a pot of excellent
guava jelly now in the house, and one of
preserved limes, and I am afraid they will
mould if you do not come ; for it 's es-
teemed sacrilege by grandmother to eat
any of them now, because she is keeping
16

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

them against somebody is sick, and I
suppose she would be very much disap-
pointed if everybody was to continue
well, and they were to spoil. We have
some oranges, too, which Isaac Burnham
gave grandmother, which are rotting as
fast as possible, and we stand a very fair
chance of not having any good of them,
because we have to eat the bad ones first,
as the good ones are to be kept till they
are spoiled also."

In May, 1820, his uncle Robert was
again in Raymond, and Nathaniel, fear-
ing he would get out his gun and use it,
cautions him, " It has a very large charge
in it, and I guess it will kick"

Again writing from Salem, under date Early let-
of June 19, 1 82 1, he tells his mother how ^"'^
much he wishes to see her, but adds : —

" I hope, dear mother, that you will
not be tempted by my entreaties to re-
turn to Salem to live. You can never
have so much comfort here as you now
enjoy. You are now undisputed mistress
17

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

of your own house ... If you remove to
Salem, I shall have no mother to return
to during the college vacations, and the
expense will be too great for me to come
to Salem. (This was written a few weeks
before his college life began.) If you re-
main at Raymond, think how delightfully
the time will pass, with all your children
round you, shut out from the world, and
nothing to disturb us. It will be a sec-
ond Garden of Eden.

" ' Lo, what an entertaining sight
Are kindred who agree.'

Elizabeth is as anxious for you to stay as
myself. She says she is contented to re-
main here for a short time, but greatly
prefers Raymond as a permanent place
of residence. The reason for my saying
so much on this subject is that Mrs. Dike
and Miss Manning (an older sister of his
mother) are very earnest for you to re-
turn to Salem, and I am afraid they will
commission uncle Robert to persuade
you to it. But, mother, if you wish to
i8 i9

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

live in peace, I conjure you not to con-
sent to it. Grandmother, I think, is
rather in favor of your staying."

In March, 1820, he wrote to his sister His love
Louisa from Salem : " Oh, that I had the f"^ ^^y-
wings of a dove, that I might fly hence *"""
and be at rest ! How often do I long
for my gun, and wish that I could again
savageize with you. But I shall never
again run wild in Raymond, and I shall
never be so happy as when I did. I
hope mother wUl upon no account think
of returning to Salem."

In July of the same year, he wrote to
his mother in Raymond : " I should like
to come down with Mr. Manning to see
you, but I suppose it is in vain to wish
it."

In August, 1 82 1, he wrote: "There
are few people of so much constancy as
myseK. I have preferred and still prefer
Ra)rmond to Salem, through every change
of fortune."

The following incident of his college
19

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

College life is so characteristic of the boy Haw-
^if' thorne, that it is worth relating here. I

find it in the letters preserved by Rich-
ard Manning. In 1822, near the close
of his Freshman year, he was once found
to be breaking the rules of the college
by playing cards with some of his class-
mates, but not for money. He was fined
fifty cents by the faculty, and President
Allen wrote to Mrs. Hawthorne, asking
her to " cooperate with us in the attempt
to induce your son faithfully to observe
the laws of. the institution." He sug-
gested that her son was less to blame
than the person he played with ; he had
been tempted by his associate to break
the rules. In a letter to his sister, writ-
ten at this time, Hawthorne gives his
version of the affair, and is indignant
over the intimation that he had yielded
to temptation. He evidently wished to
bear all the blame that belonged to him,
and not to figure as a lamb led astray,
especially when so near the glorious

THE HOME IN RAYMOND

estate of a Sophomore. He says : " I
am full as willing to play as the person
he suspects of having enticed me ; and
would have been influenced by no one.
I have a great mind to commence playing
again, merely to show them that I scorn
to be seduced by another into anything
wrong." His college record indicates
that his delinquencies were not at all seri-
ous, and merely show that he took life
jovially and carelessly. In October of
the same year, he wrote : " The laws of
the coUege are not too strict, and I do
not have to study as hard as I did in
Salem,"

CHAPTER II

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

NEARLY thirty years ago there
came into my hands certdn ex-
tracts from what purported to be a diary
kept by Hawthorne, written when he was
a lad in his teens. In spite of many cir-
cumstances which at the time seemed
suspicious, the internal evidence of genu-
ineness was so great, that these extracts
were printed in a paper with which I
was connected at Portland. There was
at first what appeared to be unnecessary
mystery about the personality of the
correspondent who forwarded the notes.
His letters came at long intervals, were
First hint signed Only by the initials "W. S.," and
of diary were postmarked at Alexandria, Vir-
ginia. Efforts to communicate with him

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

by letter proved unavailing, and I could
only reach him by personal notes in my
paper. He never received nor asked for
money, nor replied to offers of compen-
sation. In the last letter I received from
him, in the summer of 1 871, he said he
was soon coming to Maine, and would
bring the old diary with him. In Novem-
ber of that year came intelligence of his
death, and no more was ever heard of the
notebook, though some extracts, found
copied among his papers left at Alexan-
dria, came to hand nearly two years after-
ward. Gradually some explanations of
the mystery came to light, and confirma-
tions of his story multiplied, until no rea-
sonable doubt existed that we had before
us the first indications Hawthorne ever
gave of the genius which now irradiates
our literature, and that they came to us
from a playmate of his youth, into whose
hands the diary had come in a romantic
way.

Our correspondent's name proved to
23

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

be William Symmes ; his story is in it-
self full of interest, and from it can be
gathered some of the reasons why there
was so much that seemed mysterious in
the matter of the diary. We did not
know until after his death that he was a
mulatto ; ignorance of this fact naturally
tangled the clues by which we were
searching for him in Virginia. This is a
brief statement of the leading incidents
Son of a of his life : He was born in Portland,
noted Maine, in 1805, and was the natural son
of a leading member of the Massachu-
setts bar of that day, who gave him his
own name. Upon the death of his father,
the son, then two years old, was sent into
the country, and was brought up as the
foster son of Captain Jonathan Britton,
of Otisfield, Maine, with whom he lived
until twenty years of age. It was during
these years that Nathaniel Hawthorne,
who was one year older than Symmes,
came to live in Raymond, an adjoining
town.

24

lawyer

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

Richard Manning was a gentleman of
culture and refined tastes, somewhat
aristocratic in his bearing, and found few
associates in the sparsely settled region,
which to this day is scarcely more popu-
lous than at the beginning of this cen-
tury. Britton was an unpolished and ec- Captain
centric man, of much native ability, and ■*"''<'«
became a frequent visitor at Manning's.
His mulatto foster son sometimes accom-
panied him, and there he met young
Hawthorne, became his companion in
gunning and fishing expeditions, and a
lasting friendship existed between them.
The district school was open to the
young mulatto, and he availed himself of
its advantages. His letters, which we
give precisely as he wrote them, show
how far he was from being illiterate.
But I do not think he could have known
of his paternal ancestry, for he spelled
his name " Sims." At the age of twenty
he went to sea as a common sailor, and
we shall see how in the streets of Liver-

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

pool he was once cordially greeted by
Consul Hawthorne. During our civil
war he was a member of Colonel Baker's
secret detective force. He died at Pen-
sacola, Florida, October 28, 1871. Some
further information in regard to him may
be found in a postscript at the close of
this volume.

We will let him give his own account
of the manner in which he came into
possession of the early diary of his old
playmate. In 1870 an article was going
the rounds of the newspapers to the ef-
fect that no one was then living at Ray-
mond who remembered the boy Haw-
thorne. The paper with which I was
connected, the " Portland Transcript,"
having published this article, we soon
received a letter from Alexandria, Vir-
ginia, signed "W. S.," which is so full
of interesting reminiscence of that part
of Hawthorne's life of which his biogra-
phers have made little account, that no
excuse is needed for giving a liberal ex-
26

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

tract from it in this place. After men-
tioning several reasons why the elderly-
people of Raymond did not remember
Hawthorne, he says : —

" Another reason is, that these people Letter
do not recognize the name when they /'"'"»
hear it spoken or see it on paper. The ^y"""""
universal pronunciation of the name in
Raymond was Hathorne — the first syl-
lable exactly as the word 'hearth' was
pronoxmced at that time. I remember
meeting in 1852, in Portland, Mr. Jacob
Watkins, who lived within cannon-shot
of the Richard Manning place, and knew
the lad Hawthorne very well ; I said to
him, ' Nat Hawthorne is becoming fa-
mous.' He seemed puzzled, and said
inquiringly, ' Nat who ? ' I answered,
' That boy who used to live in your meet-
ing-house with his mother, and fish out
on that great flat rock at the outlet of
Thomas Pond, and sit gazing for hours
at a time across at your field and brick-
yard.' 'Oh yes,' said the old gentleman,
27

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

'you mean Nat Hathorne,' sounding the
• a ' as in bath. ' What of him ? ' I told
him that ' Nat ' was becoming popular as
a writer. The good old man said he had
seen the name of a Mr. Hawthorne in
the papers, but never suspected it was
the name of young 'Nat Hathorne.' I
lived with one of the few men who visited
Richard Manning, and used to go there
often with my foster father. Nat Haw-
thorne and I were nearly of the same
Thomas age and often played together. Thomas
Pond Pond, a beautiful sheet of water, lay
about a half a mile to the eastward of
his mother's house, the outlet of which
is the creek running between Manning's
house and that of his sister. We used
to go to the pond, and on a large flat
rock, partly covered with water, fish for
perch and minnows, and try our skill at
throwing stones as far as we could into
the pond. At that time there was a
charming knoll, a few rods from the out-
let, entirely clear of underbrush and com-
28

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

pletely surrounded by a growth of hand-
some trees. Nat told me that his uncle
Richard said the knoll was an Indian
burying-ground. There were ridges hav-
ing an artificial appearance, that he in-
sisted were Indian graves. On one of Indian
our excursions to the pond he read to ^''^"
me some verses that he had written, the
subject being the freezing to death of a
Mr. Tarbox and wife, in a terrible storm.
This happened in their immediate neigh-
borhood. One of the little orphans,
Elizabeth Tarbox, was adopted by Mrs.
Richard Manning, and was treated with
particular tenderness by little Nat. He
also read to me some poetry of his upon
another sad event, that happened at about
that time, the drowning of the wife and
infant of Mr. Nathaniel Knight.^ In

1 In Griffith's Poets of Maine, p. io6, is given a
ballad describing the Knight tragedy, and it is sug-
gested that these were the verses written by Haw-
thorne and recited to Sjrmmes. But it has been
found that this was not the case ; they were the effu-
sion of a local ballad-monger named Daniel Shaw.
29

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

crossing the bridge at Horsebeef Falls
on the Presumpscot River, between Gor-
ham and Windham, Mr. Knight's horse
became unmanageable and backed the
sleigh off the bridge, and Mrs. Knight
was thrown from a great height, struck
the water, and was carried under the ice
below the falls. I cannot recall a single
line of his poetry, but remember that he
read with much feeling, and that I was
near crying at his pathos, and told him
his 'verses were terrible pretty.' Nat
said he would not have his uncle Rich-
Nafspo- ard see the poetry on any account, for
'^''y- he would be sure to laugh. I remember
saying with much emphasis, that ' if his
uncle said anything against the verses he
was no judge.' We could not have been
more than ten years old, and I suspect I
was not an eminent critic ; but it would
be a satisfaction to hear those early pro-
ductions of his read now, to know if they
would touch the ear as they did then."
[Symmes is mistaken as to the age of
30

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

the young poet ; he must have been fif-
teen years old, for the Tarbox tragedy
occurred March 17, 18 19. The Knight
affair happened in 1807.]

"After the age of twenty I went to Haw-
sea, and have ever since been a wan- ^'"^"'"^

1 • -i-i • TT , manner

derer, occasionally meeting Hawthorne

by chance. He never forgot me, and
once, after he graduated, came on board
a vessel in Salem harbor and stayed with
me two hours. I was then before the
mast. I have heard people say Haw-
thorne was cold and distant; if he was
so, there was one of his youthful asso-
ciates who, as the world goes, was not
his equal socially, certainly not intel-
lectually, who was never forgotten. The
last time I saw him we were in Liver-
pool ; he recognized me across the street,
and ' hove me to.' We had a long talk,
and he conversed in that easy, bewitch-
ing style, of which he was perfect mas-
ter when he pleased. I asked if he
had ever been to Raymond since his
31

in Liver-
pool

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

mother moved back to Salem. He an-
swered : — '
Meeting " ' I have been there since, but have
not a wish to go again, for soon after we
left, uncle Richard rented the house to
Colonel Eben Scribner, to keep a stage
tavern ; everything I loved was neg-
lected. Our fruit trees died, and the
long row of butternuts that I watched
with such solicitude are not inclosed, and
now they have turned the. old mansion
into a meeting-house. Uncle Richard is
dead, and little Betsey Tarbox is mar-
ried and gone from there. No,' my idols
are destroyed, and I have no desire to
revisit the places where the altars stood.
But this I will tell you, that I have
visited many places called beautiful in
Europe and the United States, but have
never seen the place that enchanted me
like the flat rock at the outlet of Thomas
Pond, from which we used to fish. In
an October afternoon, just when the oak-
trees put on their red coats, the view
32

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

from that spot, looking to the slopes of
Rattlesnake Mountain, through the haze
of Indian summer, was to me more en-
chanting than anything I have since
seen, and I have seriously thought of in-
ducing some artist to go to Raymond in
the pleasant autumn, to make for me a
view from the rock where we used to
play. I also wish that some curious per-
son would open some of the Indian graves
that I feel sure are there.'

" Hawthorne said much more that I
cannot recall. I parted from him for the
last time in Liverpool."

In further explanation of the misun- change of
derstanding in regard to the name, it "'""'
should be said, that the family name was
spelled Hathome until 1825, when Na-
thaniel graduated. He had found that
the proper spelling was Hawthorne, and
himself made the change. In his di-
ploma, giving the degree of Bachelor of
Arts, the name was spelled without the
"w," and on this parchment is still to be
33

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

seen his partial erasure of the name as
written by the college authorities, and
his substitution of the new name he was
to render famous.
Betsey All the names and incidents mentioned

Tarbox jjy Symmes have been verified, and a few
years ago I found "little Betsey Tarbox,"
now a venerable matron. To her Haw-
thorne was only a family tradition, for
she was only four or five years old when
she last saw the lad who remembered her
so fondly thirty years later. His aunt,
who had been as a mother to her, often
spoke of Nathaniel, and she had heard
from her of the diary he left at Ray-
mond. The letter from which the above
extract is given was followed, at an in-
terval of six months, by one in which
the first intelligence of the diary was
vouchsafed. I copy Symmes's account of
the somewhat romantic way in which it
came into his possession. He wrote, as
before, from Alexandria, and signed only
his initials : —

34

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

" Since the first year of the late war First ac-
I have been in this part of Virginia, and <:<»*"* of
in 1863 became acquainted with several ""^
soldiers of the Twenty-fifth Maine Regi-
ment, who were quartered in Fairfax
County. Among them was a private
named Small, to whom I rendered some
service during an illness, and was one
day inquiring what part of Cumberland
he came from, as I had been informed
that nearly all the regiment was raised
in that county. He said his home was
Raymond. I then asked him if he knew
that Hawthorne, the author, lived there
through his boyhood, but he seemed not
to understand my meaning. I then ex-
plained to him, but found he had never
heard of the man. After thinking a few
moments, he said, ' You remind me of
something ; Frank Redo (the name as
well as I can spell and remember it)
moved a large lot of rich old furniture
from the old Manning house to the Cap-
tain Davis place several years ago. I
35

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

helped him to load and stow it away.
There was a large mahogany bookcase
and a lot of old books, and among them
TTudi- one entirely in writing, and I feel sure
ary found .the name of Hawthorne was on the out-
side. I read portions^ and it was a jour-
nal of some kind; it was filled with all
sorts of witch and ghost stories, and a
little of everything. Frank cared nothing
for the book, and gave it to me. If no
one has destroyed it, the thing is safe at
home.'

" I said, if the book was what he de-
scribed it would be a prize to me ; and
he promised if he got home alive he
would certainly send it to me by ex-
press. Thinking that he would perhaps
forget the matter, I forgot it myself, but
in the latter part of 1864 it came to me
at Camp Distribution, by the Sanitary
Commission Express, neatly done up and
directed. I have it now, and shall keep
it while I keep anything. This book was
originally a bound blank one, not ruled,
36

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

and has been gnawed by mice or eaten
by moths on the edges. On the first
leaf, in a beautiful round hand, is written
the following : —

" ' Presented by Richard Manning, to his His un- •
nephew Nathaniel Hathome, with the advice de'sgift
that he write out his thoughts, some every day,
in as good words as he can, upon any and all
subjects, as it is one of the best means of his
securing for mature years, command of thought
and language.

" ^ Raymond, June 1, 1816?

" The book has about two hundred and
fifty pages, and was about six by eight
inches before it was gnawed. It is writ-
ten throughout, the first part in a boyish
hand, though legibly, and showing in its
progress a marked improvement in pen-
manship.

" In his youth Hawthorne was much
inclined to talk of the supernatural. I
have heard him many times tell ghost Fonda/
and haunted house stories, though never ^^"'^^
as though he believed what he was say- '^ """
37

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

ing. There always seemed to be an un-
dercurrent of incredulity. One of your
correspondents, who dates at Bolster's
Mills [Robinson Cook], describes the
mother of Nathaniel as being somewhat
superstitious, and from what I recollect
of her, he is correct. Not a gross and
ignorant, but a polished and pious super-
stition. Perhaps this proclivity in the
parent may account for his filling his
journal with so many of the local stories
of the supernatural.

"I am satisfied that the journal is a
genuine one of Hawthorne's. StUl it is
possible that I have been imposed on, al-
though I cannot conceive why or where-
fore. As to selling the book, I should
as soon think of making money on a
favorite book bequeathed by my father.
I think that there are entries in this
manuscript book that will interest many
readers, especially in the county of Cum-
berland. If it is spurious, there are many
living who will detect it at once, for many

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

things are noticed that must have at the
time attained publicity. If you desire to
publish some extracts from this journal,
I will furnish them from time to time, my
only object being to contribute a little
in return for the pleasure I have enjoyed,
through the kindness of a lady friend,
in reading the ' Portland Transcript ' for
three years past."

Frank " Redo," to whom reference is Francis
made in this letter, was either the K<"ioux
Frenchman, Francis Radoux,^ who mar-
ried the widow of Richard Manning, or
his son of the same name. The old gen-
tleman was living in Portland when the
above letter came to hand, and I called
upon him, an officer of the Napoleonic
wars, with whom I had long been ac-

1 Francis Radoux came to'this country soon after
the downfall of Napoleon. At the battle of Water-
loo he served as a lieutenant in the French army.
He was a teacher of the polite accomplishment of
dancing for many years in Portland and other New
England cities. He died in Portland at a good old
age, about twenty years ago.
39

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

Had been quainted. He said that his wife had told
told of him of this notebook, and wanted him to
amry ^.^^^ j^^ ^^^^ could not find it at the time,
and believed it had been lost or loaned.
He cettainly had not given it to Small,
and believed that Small had appropriated
it at the time he assisted in removing
his household goods from the Manning
house, after the death of his wife. He
admitted that it was possible his son had
given it to Small. As for himself, he
had never seen it.

It must be acknowledged- that the mys-
tery enveloping the whole affair up to
this time made us suspicious that a liter-
ary hoax was being perpetrated. For
not only had " W. S." failed to give any
address by which he could be reached,
but we could not find at Raymond or
vicinity any one who could guess for
whom the initials might stand. But
when in a few weeks the first installment
of the promised "extracts " came, with a
letter signed "W. Sims," and still later
40

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

Other extracts followed; when we had
learned the origin and history of our cor-
respondent, and found his statements
reliable in many instances, we could no
longer doubt that the notes were really
written by Hawthorne, and came to the
conclusion that for some reason Symmes
was afraid to trust the book out of his
hands. Perhaps he feared that Small Suspi-
did not come by it honestly, or that the ""»■'
Hawthorne family would claim it. The
old Frenchman, Radoux, told me he
should demand possession of it, if by any
chance it came to light, as it had been
left to him by his wife, Hawthorne's
aunt. The Mannings in Salem were
anxious to get it, in order to put at rest
by the chirography the question of its
genuineness. But all detective machin- Detectives
ery set at work to find Symmes proved "^P^'y^
a failure, though I think we should have
found him if we had known at the time
that he was a colored man. When after
his death this was made public, he was
41

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

remembered by many people in the home
of his childhood. We found also a pos-
sible reason for the failure of the detec-
tives who were employed at Washington
in search of Symmes and the diary.
Symmes was himself ^a detective in the
very office to which application was
made, and found some means to check-
mate the searchers ! He was a prot^gd
and favorite of Colonel Baker.

The incidents and names recorded by
Hawthorne in these notes have been ver-
ified by the memories of scores of our
correspondents in Cumberland County.
And even if it were not so, the internal
evidence is convincing. The style is that
of an immature Hawthorne, most clearly ;
and considering that he was only twelve
years old when his uncle gave him the
book, with the admirably expressed in-
junction to "write out his thoughts, some
every day, in as good words as he could,
upon any and all subjects," we think his
first literary achievement remarkable. It
42

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

is a great pity that only a few of these The hook
sibylline leaves have been rescued ; for vanished
Symmes died and the book vanished,
when he had copied only three install-
ments, comprising but comparatively few
of the two hundred and fifty pages of the
book. Symmes appears to have selected
for the most part the items that con-
tained names likely to be remembered in
the county. He gave us only one or
two of the creepy ghost stories of which
he speaks in his first account of the book.
As Symmes died in Pensacola, and prob-
ably had the book with him at the time,
a search in that region may yet reveal it.
It was a treasure this old playmate of
Hawthorne valued so highly that it is
most likely he would carry it with him in
his travels.

Julian Hawthorne, in his life of his
father, refers contemptuously to the
claims of this diary, and indeed affects
to consider it of little consequence even
if proved genuine. He says : —
43

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

" With deference to the contrary opin-
Haw- ion of those who are worth listening to
ornes ^^ ^^^ subject, the present writer has
been unable to find in this diary any
trustworthy evidence, either external or,
internal, of its being anything else than
a clumsy and leaky fabrication. Assum-
ing it to be genuine, however, it seems
singularly destitute of biographical value;
and at all events it shall not be inflicted
on the reader. . . . Babies are interest-
ing and instructive in a high degree, be-
cause they are impersonaj and unself-
conscious ; but a half - grown boy is a
morally amphibious creature, who, so far
as he has attained individuality, is dis-
agreeable, and so far as he has not at-
tained it, is superfluous."

I do not beUeve that this characteriza-
tion of the extracts now to be given will
be accepted as just criticism. These
notes show the powers of close and mi-
nute observation which distinguished
Hawthorne as a man and an author ;

44

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

they were the work of a lad who had " at-
tained individuality" without becoming
" disagreeable." Mr. Lathrop, in his Mr. La-
biographical sketch of his father-in-law, *^^^f^
expresses belief in the genuineness of
the diary, and copies a few of the items
from it. But, as before remarked, no bio-
grapher of Hawthorne has taken suffi-
cient account of his peculiar manner of
life in the Maine wilderness, in its effect
upon his susceptible nature. None of
them seems to understand how much of
his boyhood and young manhood was
spent there. It may be that his mother
did not occupy the house her brother
built for her later than the year 1822,
but Nathaniel made his home with his
uncle during his visits in other years.
His college and his Raymond home were
only a few miles apart. No biography
mentions the fact that for at least one
term Hawthorne's studies in prepara-
tion for college were prosecuted at
Stroudwater, Westbrook, which is also
4S

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

in Cumberland County. He went from
Raymond with Jacob Dingley, a relative
of Mrs. Manning's, whom Hawthorne
mentions in his diary, and they lived in
Rev. Caleb the family of their teacher, Rev. Caleb
Bradley Bradley, who was a graduate of Harvard,
somewhat eccentric, and a man of such
pronounced individiaality that it would
be strange if even the few weeks Haw-
thorne spent with him did not leave last-
ing impressions upon his mind. And
yet I fail to find any reference to this
teacher in any work of Hawthorne's, un-
less it be in The Vision of the Foun-
tain in "Twice -Told Tales." In this
sketch he locates himself in a village
more than a hundred miles from home,
at the age of fifteen, and living in the
family of an old clergyman, who econo-
mizes fuel by using, as the foundation of
his parlor fire, a heap of tan, or ground
bark. All these circumstances seem a
reminiscence of his brief residence at
Stroudwater, while a pupil of Bradley's.
46

THE STORY OF WILLIAM SYMMES

The first installment of extracts sent
by Symmes was accompanied by a note
dated at Alexandria, Virginia, January
21, 1871, and signed "W. Sims," this
being the first hint of the name of our
correspoiident. In this note he said : —

" I have copied exactly some of the Symme^s
entries in Hawthorne's journal, and send ''^''"'^
them to you herewith. They are no
doubt genuine, or if they are not, your
readers in that region will detect the
fraud. I know not whether the names
are real or fictitious ; only two of them
were known to me thirty-six years ago.
Almost all the dates in the journal are
gone. They were close to the margin,
and mice and moths have eaten the outer
edges. The book has at some time been
in the water so as to destroy the binding
and obliterate every date on the inner
right hand margin. If what I send are
not worth publishing, burn them ; if they
are, and you hereafter signify in ' notices
to correspondents ' that you would like
47

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

more extracts, when I have time I will
send some additional. What I here send
were copied whenever I could get a few
spare moments. As I shall always re-
member Cumberland County with plea-
sure, if the extracts shall amuse any of
your readers there I shall be well paid."

Having now given a history of the
diary, some romantic features of which
at first excited suspicion, we will set
forth the " extracts " sent by S)mimes,
confident that unprejudiced readers will
agree with us that whatever may be said
of the external evidence, the internal is
satisfactory proof that they came from
the hand of Hawthorne. Within a few
weeks after the publication of the notes,
we received scores of letters confirmatory
of the names and incidents mentioned,
some of the most striking of these verifi-
cations coming after we had learned of
the death of Symmes. The notes are
here given exactly as received, with the
addition of some explanations and cor-
roboratory circumstances.
48

CHAPTER III

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

WENT yesterday in a sailboat on a sail
the Great Pond with Mr. Peter ""-tofe
White,! of Windham. He sailed up here ^''"'^''
from White's Bridge to see Captain Ding-
ley, and invited Joseph Dingley and Mr.
Ring to take a boat-ride out to the Ding-
ley Islands and to the Images. He was
also kind enough to say that I might go,
with my mother's consent, which she
gave after much coaxing. Since the loss
of my father, she dreads to have any one
belonging to her go upon the water. It
is strange that this beautiful body of
water is called a "Pond." The geo-

1 [Peter White was long considered the best pilot
of Sebago Lake, and of Songo and Crooked rivers,
in which region he spent much of his life fishing and
fowling. The common name of the lake at that time
was " Great Pond."]

49

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

graphy tells of many in Scotland and
Ireland, not near so large, that are
called " Lakes." It is not respectful to
speak of so noble, deep, and broad a col-
lection of clear water as a " Pond." It
makes a stranger think of geese, and
then of goosepond. Mr. White, who
knows all this region, told us that the
streams from thirty-five ponds, large and
small, flow into this, as he calls it, Great
Basin. We landed on one of the small
islands that Captain Dingley cleared for
a sheep pasture when he first came to
Raymond. Mr. Ring said he had to do
it to keep his sheep from the bears and
wolves. A growth of trees has started
on the island, and makes a grove so fine
and pleasant, that I wish almost that our
house was there. On the way from the
island to the Images, Mr. Ring caught
a black spotted trout that was almost a
whale, and weighed, before it was cut
open, after we got back to uncle Rich-
ard's store, eighteen and a half pounds.
5°

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

The men said that if it had been weighed
as soon as it came out of the water it
would have been nineteen pounds. This
trout had a droll-looking hooked nose,
and they tried to make me believe that
if the line had' been in my hands I should
have been obliged to let go, or have been
pulled out of the boat. They were men,
and had a right to say so. I am a boy,
and have a right to think differently.
We landed at the Images, when I crept in cave
into the cave and got a drink of cool °-* " '^'
water. In coming home we sailed over "^"^^
a place, not far from the Images, where
Mr. White has at some time let down a
line four hundred feet without finding
bottom. This seems strange, for he told
us, too, that his boat, as it floated, was
only two hundred and fifty feet higher
than the boats in Portland Harbor, and
that if the Great Pond was pumped dry,
a man standing on its bottom, just under
where we then were, would be more than
one hundred and fifty feet lower than
SI

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

the surface of the water at the Portland

wharves. Coming up the Dingley Bay,

Rattle- jiad a good view of Rattlesnake Moun-

Moun- ^"^t ^'^'^ it seemed to me wonderfully

tain beautiful as the almost setting sun threw

over its western crags streams of fiery

light. If the Indians were very fond of

this part of the country, it is easy to see

why. Beavers, otters, and the finest fish

were abundant, and the hills and streams

furnished constant variety. I should

have made a good Indian if I had been

born in a wigwam. To talk like sailors,

we " made " the old hemlock stub, at the

mouth of the Dingley Brook, just before

sunset, and sent a boy ashore with a

hawser, and were soon safely moored to

a bunch of alders. After we got ashore.

Firing Mr. White allowed me to fire his long

^""^ gun at a mark. I did not hit the mark,

and am not sure that I saw it at the

time the gun went off, but believe rather

that I was watching for the noise that I

was about to make. Mr. Ring said that

52

gun

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

with practice I could be a gunner, and
that now, with a very heavy charge, he
thought I could kill a horse at eight
paces ! Mr. White went to uncle Rich-
ard's for the night, and I went home,
and amused my mother with telling how
pleasantly the day had passed. When I
told her what Mr. Ring said about my
killing a horse, she said he was making
fun of me. I had found that out before.

SWAPPED pocket-knives with Robin- Swapping
son Cook yesterday. Jacob Ding- ''""'"
ley says that he cheated me ; but I think
not, for I cut a fishing-pole this morning,
and did it well. Besides, he is a Quaker,
and they never cheat.

[Robinson Cook and Jacob Dingley
were both living when this item was
printed. Mr. Cook wrote : " There can
be no doubt of the truth of Nat's rec-
ords, nor has he used any fictitious names.
S3

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

I did not at first distinctly recollect of
swapping knives with him, but, after con-
sidering, the whole affair is fresh in my
mind. I do not recollect how we traded ;
but as he and Jacob Dingley were great
cronies, and were ever trying in a jocose
manner to 'trig each other's wheels,' it
seems that Jacob tried to irritate Nat on
this occasion by telling him that he had
got cheated."]

King. 'TnWO kingbirds have built their nest
irds J_ between our house and the mill-

pond. The male is more courageous than
any creature that I know about. He
seems to have taken possession of the
territory from the great pond to the
small one, and goes out to war with
every fish-hawk that flies from one to
the other over his dominion. The fish-
hawks must be miserable cowards to be
driven by such a speck of a bird. I have
not yet seen one turn to defend himself.
54

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

CAPTAIN BRITTON, from Otis- Brittm^s
field, was at uncle Richard's to-/"'^
day. Not long ago uncle brought here
from Salem a new kind of potatoes, called
"Long Reds." Captain Britton had
some for seed, and uncle asked how
he liked them. He answered, " They
yield well, grow very long; one end is
very poor, and the other good for no-
thing." I laughed about it after he was
gone; but uncle looked sour, and said
there was no wit in his answer, and that
the saying was stale. It was new to me,
and his way of saying it very funny.
Perhaps uncle did not like to hear his
favorite potato spoken of in that way,
and that if the captain had praised it he
would have been called witty. Captain
Britton promised to bring " Gulliver's
Travels " for me to read, the next time
he goes to Portland. Uncle Richard has
not the book in his library.

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

THIS morning the bucket got off
the chain and dropped back into
the well. I wanted to go down on the
Mother's stones and get it. Mother would not
fears consent, for fear the wall might cave in,
but hired Samuel Shane to go down.
In the goodness of her heart, she thought
the son of old Mrs. Shane not quite so
valuable as the son of the widow Ha-
thorne. God bless her for all her love
for me, though it may be some selfish.
We are to have a pump in the well after
this mishap.

An expert TT TASHINGTON LONGLEY has
drummer \\ ^^^^ ^^:^^ lessons of a drum-
ming master. He was in the grist-mill
to-day, and practiced with two sticks on
the half bushel. I was astonished at the
great number of strokes in a second ;
and if I had not seen that he had but
two sticks, should have supposed he was
drumming with twenty.
S6

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

MAJOR BERRY went past our Buyinga
house with a large drove of sheep ^^^
yesterday. One, a last spring's lamb,
gave out, — could go no further. I saw
him down near the bridge. The poor
dumb creature looked into my eyes, and
I thought I knew what he would say if
he could speak, and so asked Mr. Berry
what he would sell him for. " Just the
price of his pelt, and that will bring
sixty-five cents," was the answer. I ran
and petitioned mother for the money,
which she soon gave me, saying, with a
smile, that she tried to make severe, but
could not, that I was "a great spend-
thrift." The lamb is in our orchard now,
and he made a bow (without taking off
his hat), and thanked me this morning
for saving him from the butcher.

[The late Hon. William Goold, of

Windham, the historian, wrote to me

this comment upon the above item :

" Major Berry, the drover, passed my

S7

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

home on his way to market with his
droves of tired lambs, in the heat of July
and August, regularly for several years.
I have often felt as Hawthorne did when
they gave out on the road, and would
have gladly purchased one if I had had
the money. Mr. Berry was a short,
fleshy man, and always rode horseback,
apparently suffering as much in the sun
as the lambs."]

Rattk. A yTR. MARCH GAY killed a rattle-
IVX snake yesterday, not far from his
house, that was more than six feet long,
and had twelve rattles. This morning,
Mr. Jacob Mitchell killed another near
the same place, almost as long. It is
supposed they were a pair, and that the
second one was on the track of its mate.
If every rattle counts a year, the first
one was twelve years old. Eliakim Max-
field came down to mill to-day, and told
me about the snakes.
S8

snakes

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

MR. HENRY TURNER, of Otis- B,ar
field, took his axe and went out ^*'^y
between Saturday and Moose ponds, to
look at some pine-trees. A rain had just
taken off enough of the snow to lay bare
the roots of a part of the trees. Under
a large root there seemed to be a cavity,
and on examining closely, something was
exposed very much like long black hair.
He cut off the root, saw the nose of a
bear, and killed him, pulled out the body,
saw another, killed that, and dragged out
its carcass, when he found that there was
a third one in the den, and that he was
thoroughly awake, too ; but as soon as
the head came in sight, it was split open
with the axe, so that Mr. Turner alone,
with only an axe, killed three bears in
less than half an hour, the youngest being
a good-sized one, and what the hunters
call a yearling. This is a pretty great
bear story, but probably true, and hap-
pened only a few weeks ago ; for John
Patch, who was here with his father, Cap-
59

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

tain Levi Patch, who lives within two
miles of the Saturday Pond, told me so
yesterday.

[Robinson Cook informed me that the
bear story here related was true, in the
main. Turner went to the woods with
his oxen to get birch bark to make sap
buckets. His dog discovered the den of
bears, and two were killed with the axe.
The third was wounded with the same
weapon, and retreated to the farthest
side of the den, where he could not be
reached. Turner finally dispatched him
with a long, sharpened stake. His oxen
were so badly frightened, that he was
obliged to fasten them to a tree with
chains until he had loaded the dead bears
upon his sled. Then he let the oxen
loose, jumped upon the sled, and was
carried home at a furious pace by the
maddened animals.]
60

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

A YOUNG man named Henry Jack--
son, Jr., was drowned two days ago,
up in Crooked River. He and one of his
friends were trying which could swim the
faster. Jackson was behind but gaining ;
his friend kicked at him in fun, thinking
to hit his shoulder and push him back,
but missed, and hit his chin, which
caused him to take in water and stran-
gle, and before his friend could help or
get help, poor Jackson was (Elder Leach
says) "beyond the reach of mercy." I
read one of the Psalms to my mother
this morning, and it plainly declares Elder
twenty-six times, that " God's mercy en- ^""'^ ,

, , , ,, -r t/ criticised

dureth forever. I never saw Henry
Jackson, — he was a young man just
married. Mother is sad ; says she shall '
not consent to my swimming any more
in the mDl-pond, with the boys, fearing
that in sport my mouth might get kicked
open, and then sorrow for a dead son be
added to that for my dead father, which
she says would break her heart. I love
6i

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

to swim, but shall not disobey my
mother.

iTind [Robinson Cook, upon the publication

heart q£ ^.j^g ^bovc item, wrote to me as fol-
creed ^°^^ • " ^ remember well almost every
circumstance related by Nat, and espe-
cially the death and funeral of Henry
Jackson, Jr. ; I was at the funeral. Elder
Leach preached the sermon, and such
were the circumstances of his death, that
he could not, according to his creed, find
a happy resting-place for poor Henry in
that country from which no traveler re-
turns. I helped carry the remains to
the silent grave, and very many hearts
were sad on considering, as Elder Leach
said, that he was ' out of the reach of
mercy ; ' hence the sadness of Mrs. Haw-
thorne, when she called upon her son to
read the psalm he mentions. Elder
Leach was a Freewill Baptist minister,
with a kind, sympathizing heart, and
ready on all occasions to visit the sick,
62

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

attend all funerals in his precinct, and do
this without pay ; but a hard creed lay-
in the way of his tender and Christian
emotions."]

I CAN from my chamber window look Betty
across into aunt Manning's garden, ^"''^''■^
this morning, and see little Betty Tar-
box, flitting among the rosebushes, and
in and out of the arbor, like a tiny witch.
She will never realize the calamity that
came upon her brothers and sisters, that
terrible night when her father and mother
lay within a few rods of each other, in the
snow, freezing to death. I love the elf,
because of her loss ; and stUl my aunt is
much more to her than her own mother,
in her poverty, could have been.

[This item, if accepted as genuine, con-
clusively proves that the Hawthornes
were living in their house across the
creek from the Mannings in the sum-
63

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

mer of 1819. Nathaniel's chamber win-
dow did not look down into, but across
into, his aunt's garden. The residences
were separated by a narrow stream. I
have heard, but cannot now verify the
statement, that the ledger kept in a store
in that vicinity shows an account with
the Hawthornes, who must have been
keeping house by themselves in Ray-
mond, in the summer of 1822, the year
after Hawthorne entered college. At all
events, he spent his vacations here, either
with his mother or his uncle. There
were five children orphaned by the death
of Mr. and Mrs. Tarbox. The story of
the great storm, in which they lost their
lives, has in it such elements of pathos
that it is here given, to account for young
Hawthorne's deep interest, as shown in
this note and in the narrative by Sjnumes :
story of In the second week of March, 1819, a
Tarbox severe snowstorm began, which lasted
nine days, and the cold was intense.
There being no food in the house, Mr.
64

tragedy

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

Tarbox went five miles for a supply, and
upon his return found the drifts so deep
that he had not the strength to get
through them with his load. When not
far from his home he left the bag of pro-
visions upon a tree, and tried to reach
his door, but soon sank down exhausted.
His calls for help were heard by his wife,
who went to his assistance. She cov-
ered him with her shawl, and realizing
the necessities of her starving family,
attempted to get the food he had left be-
hind. But the drifts were too deep, and
the cold too intense. She sank down
and perished near the tree, while her
husband was dying close to their home.
Their bodies were found two days after-
ward. Mrs. Manning adopted Betsey,
the youngest of the orphaned children,
aged four.]

FISHING from the bridge to-day, I Biged
caught an eel two thirds as long
as myself. Mr. Watkins tried to make
6S

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

me believe that he thought it a water-
moccasin snake. Old Mr. Shane said that
it was a "young sea sarpint, sure." Mr.
Fickett, the blacksmith, begged it to take
home for its skin, as he said for buskin
strings and flail strings. So ends my
day's fishing.

Bricks . T T TENT over to-day to see Watkins
without VV make bricks. I have always

straw -'

thought there was some mystery about

it, but I can make them myself. Why
did the Israelites complain so much at
having to make bricks without straw.'
I should not use straw if I was a brick-
maker ; besides, when they are burned
in the kiln, the straw will burn out, and
• leave the bricks full of holes.

Polly TDOLLY MAXFIELD came riding
Maxjield £ jQ jjjju ^Q_^^y on horseback. She

rode gracefully as a trooper. I wish with
66

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

all my heart that I was as daring a rider,
or half so graceful.

[Robinson Cook says of the mill, so The
often referred to in these notes, that it ^'^^'y
was known as the old Dingley mill, and *"*
was built in 1772. A grant of one hun-
dred acres of land was made to Joseph
Dingley, its builder. His son, Samuel
Dingley, was the miller of Hawthorne's
time, and he was then old and crippled.
"This mill," says Cook, "was situated
near the home of Mrs. Hawthorne. To
this mill came all sorts of customers,
from a five franc piece to a fourpence
ha'penny, — men, women, and children,
some on foot, who would bring their grist
to mill ten miles. Nearly all came on
horseback. Polly Maxfield was the eld-
est daughter of her father's family, and
a sister of Eliakim, the well-known stage
driver from Waterford to Portland for
about thirty years."]
67

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

An ill- 'TpHIS morning I saw at the grist-mill

"" J- a solemn-faced old horse, hitched

horse '

to the trough. He had brought for his
owner some bags of corn to be ground,
who, after carrying them into the mill,
walked up to uncle Richard's store, leav-
ing his half -starved animal in the cold
wind, with nothing to eat, while the com
was being turned to meal. I felt sorry,
and nobody being near, thought it best
to have a talk with the old nag, and said,
" Good-morning, Mr. Horse, how are you
to-day } " " Good-morning, youngster,"
said he, just as plain as a horse can
speak, and then said, " I am almost dead,
and I wish I was quite. I am hungry,
have had no breakfast, and must stand
here tied by the head while they are
grinding the corn, and until master
drinks two or three glasses of rum at
the store, and then drag him and the
meal up the Ben Ham hill, and home,
and am now so weak that I can hardly
stand. Oh, dear, I am in a bad way,"
68

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

and the old creature cried — I almost
cried myself.

Just then the miller went downstairs
to the meal trough. I heard his feet on
the steps, and, not thinking much what I
was doing, ran into the mill, and taking
the four quart toll -dish nearly full of
com out of the hopper, carried it out
and poured it into the trough before the
horse, and placed the dish back before
the miller came up from below. When
I got out, the horse was laughing, but he
had to eat slowly, because the bits were Relief
in his mouth. I told him that I was "ff'^^'^
sorry, but did not know how to take
them out, and should not dare to, if I
did, for his master might come out of the
store suddenly and see what I was about.
"Thank you," said he, "a luncheon of
corn with the bits in is much better than
none. The worst of it is, I have to
munch so slowly, that my master may
come before I finish it, and thrash me
for eating his corn, and you for your
69

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

kindness." I sat down on a stone out
of the wind, and waited in trouble, for
fear that the miller or the owner of the
corn would come and find out what I
had done. At last the horse winked and
stuck out his upper lip ever so far, and
then said, "The last kernel is gone;"
then he laughed a little, then shook one
ear, then the other, then shut his eyes
as if to take a nap. I jumped up and
said, " How do you feel, old fellow ; any
better ? " He opened his eyes, and,
looking at me kindly, answered, "Very
much," and then blew his nose exceed-
ingly loud, but he did not wipe it; per-
haps he had no wiper. I then asked if
The iron his master whipped him. "Not much
lately ; he used to, till my hide got hard-
ened, but now he has a white oak goad
stick with an iron brad in its end, with
which he jabs my hind quarters, and
hurts me awfully." I asked why he did
not kick up, and knock his tormentor out
of the wagon. " I did try to once," said
70

brad

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

he, " but am old and was weak, and could
only get my heels high enough to break
the whiffletree, and besides lost my bal-
ance and fell down flat. Master then
jumped down, and, getting a cudgel,
struck me over the head, and I thought
my troubles were over. This happened
just before Mr. Ben Ham's house, and I
should have been finished, and ready for
the crows, if he had not stepped out and
told master not to strike again, if he did
he would shake his liver out. That saved
my life ; but I was sorry, though Mr.
Ham meant good."

The goad with the iron brad was in "Old
the wagon, and, snatching it out, I struck "^*"
the end against a stone, and the stabber ^" ^"
flew into the mill-pond. "There," says
I, " old colt," as I threw the goad back
into the wagon, "he won't harpoon you
again with that iron." The poor old
brute knew what I said well enough, for
I looked him in the eye and spoke horse
language. So he turned his long upper
7«

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

Up away back and laughed again, I
thought a little exultingly.. Very soon,
however, a tear came into his eye, and
he said, " My young friend, do you know
how long horses live ? " I answered that
I had heard that some lived thirty years.
" Oh, dear ! " said he, " I am sorry. I
am twenty-four, and have been hoping
that I should die before snow fell; it
does not seem that I can possibly go
through another winter," and the tears
began to run again.

At that moment the brute that owned
the horse came out of the store and down
the hill towards us. I slipped behind a
pile of slabs. The meal was put in the
wagon, the horse unhitched, the wagon
mounted, the goad picked up, and a
thrust made ; but Dobbin was in no
hurry. Looking at the end of his stick,
the man bawled, "What little devil has
had my gourd .' " and then began strik-
ing with all his strength ; but his steed
only walked, shaking his head as he went
72

conscience

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

across the bridge, and I thought I heard
the ancient Equus say as he went,
"Thrash as much as you please; for
once you cannot stab." I went home Case of
a little uneasy, not feeling sure that the
feeding the man's com to his own horse
was not stealing, and thinking that if the
miller found it out he would have me
taken down before Squire Longley.

[Mr. Lathrop copies part of the above
extract in a sketch of his father-in-law,
and says of it that "it is the first in-
stance on record of a mild approach of
Hawthorne to writing fiction." Robin-
son Cook informs me that he recognizes
the portraits of the hard master and the
ill-used horse. Of the master, he says :
" He was a worthless, tyrannical, cruel
man, past middle age, with a large family
of boys and girls, who had to look out
for themselves when of age sufficient.
He and his son would come together to
mill. I have seen them occasionally at
73

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

the store. In bitter cold days the horse
would have to stand without covering,
while the northern blast was whistling
through his hair and over the chafed
places worn tender by the old harness.
Without food or shelter he would have
to remain, while father and son played
cards in the store to decide which should
pay for the drinks."]

At Pulpit ' I '•HIS morning walked down to the
Rock X Pulpit Rock hill, and climbed up

into the pulpit. It looks like a rough
place to preach from, and does not seem
so much like a pulpit when one is in it
as when viewing it from the road below.
It is a wild place, and really a curiosity.
I brought a book, and sat in the rocky
recess and read nearly an hour. This is
a point on the road known to all team-
sters. They have a string of names for
reference, by which they tell each other
where they met fellow - teamsters, or
74

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

where their loads got stuck, and I have
learned them from those who stop for
drmks at the store. One meets another
near our house and says, "Where did

you meet Bill ? " " Just this side

of Small's Brook," or "At the top of
Gay's Pmch," "At the Dry Millpond,"
" Just the other side of Lemmy Jones's,"
" On the Long Causeway," " At Jeems
Gowen's," "Coming down the Pulpit
Rock hUl," "Coming down Tarkill hill."
I have heard these answers till I have
them by heart, without having any idea
where any of the places are, excepting
the one I have seen to-day. While on
the bridge, near the pulpit, Mr. West, who
lives not far away, came along and asked
where I had been. On my telling him,
he said no money would hire him to go
up to that pulpit ; that the devil used Devil
to preach from it to the Indians long, P''<^<:f^"
long ago ; that on a time when hundreds J^.^Jj
of them were listening to one of his ser-
mons, a great chief laughed in the devil's
75

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

face, upon which he stamped his foot,
and the ground to the southwest, where
they were standing, sank fifty feet, and
every Indian went down out of sight,
leaving a swamp to this day. He de-
clared that he once stuck a pole in there,
which went down easily several feet, but
then struck the skull bone of an Indian,
when instantly all the hassocks and flags
began to shake, and he heard a yell as
from fifty overgrown Pequots; that he
left the hole and ran for life, and would
not go to the bog again for the best farm
Mr. in Raymond. Mr. West also said that
no Indian had ever been known to go
near that swamp since, but that when-
ever one came that way, he turned out
of the road near the house of Mr. West,
and went straight to Thomas Pond, keep-
ing to the eastward of the Pulpit Rock,
giving it a "wide berth." Mr. West
talked as though he believed what he
said.

76

Wesfs
legend

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

A PEDDLER, named Dominicus Jor- Aghast
dan, was to-day in uncle Rich- ■^'"0'
ard's store, telling a ghost story. I lis-
tened intently, but tried not to seem
interested. The story was of a house,
the owner of which was suddenly killed.
Since his death, the west garret window
cannot be kept closed, though the shut-
ters be hasped and nailed at night ; they
are invariably found open the next morn-
ing, and no one can tell when or how
the nails are drawn. There is also on
the farm an apple-tree, of the fruit of
which the owner was particularly fond,
but since his death no person has been
able to get one of the apples. The tree
hangs full nearly every year ; but when-
ever any individual tries to get one,
stones come in all directions, as if
thrown from some secret, infernal bat-
tery, or hidden catapult, and more than
once have those making the attempt
been struck. What is more strange, the
tree stands in an open field, there being
77

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

no shelter near from which tricks can be
played without exposure. Jordan says
that it seems odd to strangers to see
that tree loaded with apples when the
snow is four feet deep ; and, what is a
mystery, there are no apples in the
spring ; no one ever sees the wind blow
one off, none are ever seen on the snow,
nor even the vestige of one on the grass
under the tree ; and that children may
play under and around it whUe it is in
blossom, and until the fruit is large
enough to tempt them, with perfect safety.
Bewitched But the moment one of the apples is
apple-tree ggught for, the air is full of flying stones.
He further says that late one starlight
night, he was passing the house, and,
looking up, saw the phantom walk out of
the garret window, with cane in hand,
making all the motions, as if walking on
terra firma, although what appeared to
be his feet were at least six yards from
the ground, and so he went walking
away on nothing ; and, when nearly out
78

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

of sight, there was a great flash and an
explosion as of twenty fieldpieces — then
— nothing! This story was told with
seeming earnestness, and listened to as
though it was believed. How strange it
is that almost all persons, old or young,
are fond of hearing about the super-
natural, though it produces nervousness,
and often fear. I should not be willing
to sleep in that garret, though I do not
believe a word of the story.

[Dominicus Jordan was a peddler who
made his circuit in Cumberland County.
After acquiring a small fortune at this
business, he went west, became wealthy,
and died in Wisconsin in 1869. In his
story of " Mr. Higginbotham's Catastro-
phe," Hawthorne introduces the character
of Dominicus Pike, the Yankee tobacco
peddler, whose name, unusual in New
England, was evidently suggested by that
of the Raymond peddler whose story of
the bewitched apple-tree is here recorded.]
79

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

Lumber- 'T^HE lumbermen from Saccarappa
men on X. are getting their logs across the
J^" , Great Pond. Yesterday a strong north-
west wind blew a great raft of many thou-
sands over almost to the mouth of the
Dingley Brook. Their anchor dragged
for more than a mile, but when the
boom was within twenty or thirty rods
of the shore, it brought up and held, as I
heard some men say who are familiar
with such business. All the men and
boys went from the mill down to the
pond to see the great raft, and I among
them. They have a string of logs fas-
tened end to end and surrounding the
great body, which keeps them from scat-
tering ; and the string is called a boom.
A small strong raft, it may be forty feet
square, with an upright windlass in its
centre, called a capstan, is fastened to
some part of the boom. The small raft
is called "head works," and from it, in
a yawl boat, is carried the anchor, to
which is attached a strong rope half a
80

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

mile long. The boat is rowed out the
whole length of the rope, the anchor
thrown over, and the men on the " head
works" wind up the capstan, and so
draw along the acres of logs. After we
got down to the shore, several of the men
came out on the boom nearest to us, and
striking a single log, pushed it under and
outside. Then one man, with a gallon
jug slung to his back, taking a pickpole,
pushed himself ashore on the small single siding a
log, — a feat that seemed almost miracu- ""S^'
lous to me. This man's name was Reu- "^
ben March, and he seemed to be in no
fear of getting soused, though the top of
the log was but just out of water. This
masterly kind of navigation he calls
" cuffing the rigging." Nobody could
tell me why he gave it that name.
March went up to the store, and had the
jug filled with rum (the supply having
run out on the head works), and made
the voyage back in the way he came.
His comrades received him with cheers,
8i

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

and after sinking the log and drawing it
back under the boom, proceeded to try
the contents of the jug, seeming to be
well satisfied with the result of his expe-
dition. It turned out that March only
rode the single log ashore to show his
adroitness, for the yawl boat soon came
round from the head works, and brought
near a dozen men, in red shirts, to where
we were. I was interested listening to
their conversation, mixed with sharp
Nick- jokes. Nearly every one had a nick-
names name. March, who came after the rum,
was " Captain Snarl ; " a tall, fierce look-
ing man, who had just filled my idea of a
Spanish freebooter, was " Doctor Goo-
die." I think his real name was Wood.
The rum seemed to make them crazy,
for one who was called " Rub-a-Dub "
pitched Doctor Coodle, head and heels,
into the water. A gentlemanly man
named Thompson, who acted as master
of ceremonies, or Grand Turk, interfered
and put a stop to what was becoming
82

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

something like a fight. Mr. Thompson
said that the wind would go down with
the sun, and that they must get ready to
start. This morning I went down to
look for them, and the raft was almost
to Frye's Island.

I HAVE read "GuUiver's Travels," Lies too
and do not agree with Captain Brit- f*^^'
ton that it is a witty and uncommonly
interesting book. The wit is obscene, and
the lies too false.

[The extracts given above were all that
were ever received directly from Symmes.
But nearly two years after his death we
received from one Dickinson, of Alexan-
dria, a package which he informed us was
found among the papers of Symmes, left
behind when he went to Pensacola, where
he died. He had copied out a longer
sketch than any previously furnished,
which is given below, and it is the only
83

corre-
spondent

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

one of the whole series which is dated
Dickinson was as provokingly careful as
had been Symmes to give no address by
Another which we could reach him. His note
Virginia indicated that he was a friend of Symmes,
but whether or not he was of the same
race could not be ascertained. Hoping
that we might learn from him still more
about the journal, no effort was spared
to find him; but Dickinson proved as
elusive as his friend, and we never again
heard from him. If Hawthorne's style
had not been so evident in every one
of these notes, if other internal and ex-
ternal evidence had not been so strong,
the mysterious avoidance of our two Vir-
ginia correspondents of everything that
might have given a clue to their person-
ality would have been regarded as fa-
tally suspicious. But the hand of the
young master, as revealed in these lines,
was one that could not be counterfeited
by comparatively illiterate men. Some
one wrote these notes who was not only
84

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

thoroughly familiar with Raymond and
its people, but who was already in com-
mand of a literary style decidedly Haw-
thornesque. The entry in the journal
now to be given is full of allusions to
people well known in Cumberland
County. Several of them were person-
ally known to the present writer, and the
characteristics recorded fit them remark-
ably well. It is not an unnatural sugges-
tion, considering the elements of mystery
surrounding the matter, that some one
was for two years engaged in working up
a literary hoax But if that were the
case, it is evident that a person capable
of writing these notes, expecting to get
any sport or reputation out of his work,
could have attained his object only by
eventually showing his hand. No money No money
was ever called for, though offered in '^I'^'^Jo^
many ways and at many times. More
than a quarter of a century of silence
and corroboratory circumstances without
number force the conclusion that we
85

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

have before us a genuine work of one
of the greatest artists in words of his
time. The letter from Dickinson, men-
tioned above, I have mislaid, and his
Christian name I have forgotten, but
have the impression it was Charles. I
remember that it claimed to be from a
friend of Symmes, and it mentioned the
fact that S)rmmes died in Florida, prob-
ably having the notebook with him.
Who was Dickinson also said that when S)aiimes
Dicktn- ^ag copying the extracts from the note-
book, his right arm was disabled, and
that he (Dickinson) had acted as his
amanuensis. This accounted for the
fact, which otherwise would have puzzled
us, that the handwritings of Symmes and
Dickinson were so much alike as they
certainly were. They both wrote with
pencil and not with ink, and the chiro-
graphy was remarkably good. I mention
this singular circumstance in order to
include every element of suspicion. My
present belief is that Dickinson was as-
86

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

sociated with S)mimes as a member of
Baker's detectives, not in the regular
force, but employed to spy upon the reg-
ulars. In this occupation they made
enemies, and felt obliged to keep in hid-
ing, even after the war was over. This
is hinted at in the obituary notice of
Symmes given in the Postscript. This
notice was probably written by Dickin-
son, whoever Dickinson might be.J

DAY before yesterday, Mr. Thomas Invited
Little, from Windham Hill, Mr. to sail on
M. P. Sawyer, of Portland, Mr. Thomas ^'^''^''
A. Deblois, a lawyer, Mr. Hanson, of
Windham, and Enoch White, a boy of
my own age, from White's Bridge, came
up to the Dingley Brook in a sailboat.
They were on the way to Muddy River
bog, for a day's sport, fishing and shoot-
ing ducks. Enoch proposed that I should
go with them. I needed no urging, but
knew how unwillingly my mother would
87

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

consent. They could wait but a few
minutes, and uncle Richard kindly wrote
a note, asking her to be willing to gratify
me this time.

She said, "Yes," but I was almost
sorry, knowing that my day's plea;sure
would cost her one of anxiety. How-
ever, I gathered up hooks aind lines,
with some white salted pork for bait, and
with a fabulous number of biscuit, split
in the middle, the insides well buttered,
then skillfully put together again, and all
stowed in sister's large work-bag, and
Bet with slung over my shoulder, I started, mak-
Enoch jjjg ^ wager with Enoch White, as we
walked down to the boat, as to which
would catch the largest number of fish.

The air was clear, with just breeze
enough to shoot us along pleasantly,
without making rough, waves. The wind
was not exactly after us, though we made
but two tacks to reach the mouth of
77ie Muddy River. The men praised the
scemry grand view, after we got into the Great

88

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

Bay. We could see the White Hills to
the northwest, though Mr. Little said
they were eighty miles from us, and
grand old Rattlesnake to the northeast,
in its immense jacket of green oak,
looked more inviting than I had ever
seen it, while Frye's Island, with its close
growth of great trees, growing to the
very edge of the water, looked like a
monstrous green raft, floating to the
southeastward. Whichever way the eye
turned, something charming appeared.

Mr. Little seems to be familiar with
every book that has ever been written,
and must have a great memory. Among
other things, he said : —

" Gentlemen, do you know that this Mr. Lit-
should be called the sea instead of the *^^^ *'^^^
Great Pond ; that ships should be built
here, and navigate this water } The sur-
face of the Sea of Galilee, of which we
read so much in the New Testament,
was just about equal to the surface of
our sea to-day."

89

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

And then he went on to give a geo-
graphical description of the country about
the Sea of Galilee, and draw parallels be-
tween places named in the Testament
and points in sight. His talk stole my
attention until we were fairly at Muddy
River mouth.

Muddy Muddy River bog is quite a curiosity.

River bog "pj^g j^^g^ empties into the pond between
two small, sandy capes or points, only a
short distance apart ; but after running
up a little between them, we found the
bog to widen to fifty or sixty rods in
some places, and to be between two and
three miles long. People say that it has
no bottom, and that the longest pole that
ever grew may be run down into the
mud, and then pushed down with an-
other, a little longer, and this may be
repeated till the long poles are all gone.

Coarse, tall water-grass grows up from
the mud, over every part, with the ex-
ception of a space five or six rods wide,
running its whole length, and nearly in
go

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

the middle, which is called the channel.
One can tell at first sight that it is the
place for pickerel and water-snakes.

Mr. Deblois stated something that I
never heard before as a fact in natural
history : that the pickerel wages war on
all fishes except the trout, who is too ac-
tive for him ; that he is a piscatorial can-
nibal ; but that under all circumstances,
and in all places, he lives on good terms
with the water-snakes.

We saw a great many ducks, but they
seemed to know that Mr. Sawyer had a
gun, and flew on slight notice. At last,
as four were flying, and seemed to be en-
tirely out of gunshot, he fired, saying he
would frighten them, if no more, when,
to our surprise, he brought one down.
The gun was loaded with ball, and Mr.
Deblois told him that he could not do it
again in a million times. Mr. Sawyer
laughed, saying that he had always been
a votary of chance, and that, as a general A votary
thing, she had treated him handsomely, of chance
91

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

We sailed more than a mile up the
bog, fishing and trolling for pickerel, and
though we saw a great many, not one
offered to be caught ; but hornpouts
were willing, and we caught them till it
The Jews'- was no sport. We found a man there
harp man ■j^^ho had taken nearly two bushels of
pouts. He was on a raft, and had walked
from near the foot of Long Pond, in Otis-
field. Mr. Little knew him, arid intend-
ing to have some fun, said : —

"The next time you come to Port-
laiid I want half a dozen of your best
jews'-harps ; leave them at my store
at Windham hill; I need them very
badly."

The man deliberately took from the
hook a large pout that he had just pulled
up, and, laying his fishing-pole down, be-
gan to explore solemnly in his pockets,
and brought out six giant jews'-harps
carefully tied to pieces of corncob. Then
he tossed them into our boat to Mr. Lit-
tle, saying, "There they are, Tom, and
92

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

they are as good ones as I ever made ; I
shall charge you fifty cents for them."

Mr. Little had the worst of the joke,
but as the other men began to rally him,
he took out the silver and paid the half-
dollar; but they laughed at him till he
told them if they would say no more
about it, he would give them all the
brandy they could drink when they got
home.

Mr. Deblois said he would not be Too good
bribed, and that he must tell Peter '"'^^'5^*
White, when he got to Windham hill.

Mr. Little said he would not have
Peter White know it for a yoke of steers.

After fishing till all were tired, we
landed on a small dry knoll, that made
out into the bog, to take our luncheon.
The men had a variety of eatables, and The
several bottles that held no eatables. ^«»'^'^«<'»
The question was started whether Enoch
and I should be invited to drink, and
they concluded not to urge us as we
were boys, and under their care ; so Mr.
93

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

Deblois said, " Boys, anything to eat that
is in our baskets is as much yours as
ours, — help yourselves ; but we shall not
invite you to drink spirits."

We thanked them and said we had
plenty of our own to eat, and had no
relish for spirits, but were very thirsty
for water. Mr. Little had been there be-
fore, and directed us to a spring of the
best of water, that boiled up like a pot
from the ground just at the margin of
the bog.
Settling Before starting to return, the bet be-
the bet tween Enoch and myself had to be set-
tled. By the conditions, the one who
caught the largest number of fish was to
have all the hooks and lines of the other.
I counted my string, and found twenty-
five ; Enoch made twenty-six on his. So
I was about turning over the spoils
when Mr. Sawyer said my string was
the largest — that there was a mistake.
So he counted and made twenty-six on
mine, and twenty-five on Enoch's. We
94

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

counted again, and found it was as he
said ; and Enoch prepared to pay the
bet, when Mr. Sawyer again interfered,
saying that Enoch's string was certainly
larger than mine, and proposed to count
again. This time I had twenty -four,
and Enoch twenty-seven. All the men
counted them several times over, and
until we could not tell which was which,
and they never came out twice alike.

At length Mr. Deblois said with so- Sawyer's
lemnity, " Stop this. Sawyer ; you have ■f^«^'*' "f
turned these fish into a pack of cards,
and are fooling us all." The men
laughed heartily, and so should I if I
had known what the point of the joke
was. Mr. Deblois said that the decision
as to our bet would have to go over to
the next term.

After starting for home, while running
down the bog, Mr. Sawyer killed three
noble black ducks at one shot, but the
gun was not loaded this time with ball.
Mr. Hanson struck with his fishing-pole
9S

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

Pf^atir- and killed a monstrous water-snake. Mr.

snakes Little measured a stick with his hands,
and, using it as a rule, declared him to be
five feet long. If I thought any such
snakes ever went over to Dingley Bay,
I never would go into the water there
again.

When we got out of the bog into the
open water, we found a lively breeze
from the northwest, and they landed me
at the Dingley Brook in less than an
hour, and then kept on like a great
white bird down towards the Cape and
for the outlet. I stood and watched the
boat till it was nearly halfway to Frye's
Island, loath to lose sight of what had
helped me to enjoy the day so much.

A string Taking my fish, I walked home, and

of worth- greeted mother just as the sun, went out
of sight behind the hills of Baldwin.
The fish were worthless, and it made me
sweat to carry them; but I thought I
must have something to show for the
day spent. After exhibiting them to
96

less fish

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

mother and sister, and hearing the com-
ments as to their ugliness, and much spec-
ulation as to what their horns were for, I
gave them to Mr. Lambard, who said
pouts were the best of all fish after they
were skinned.

I have made this account of the expe- Written
dition to please uncle Richard, who is >^«»<^^'
an invalid, and cannot get out to enjoy
such sport, and wished me to write and
describe everything just as it happened,
whether witty or silly, and give my own
impressions. He has read my diary, and
says it interested him, which is all the
reward I desire. And now I add these
lines to keep in remembrance the pecu-
liar satisfaction I received in hearing the
conversation, particularly of Mr. Deblois
and Mr. Little.

Raymond, August, 1818.

[There were curious facts not known
to Hawthorne which give peculiar inter-
est to some particulars in the above
97

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

sketch. The present writer had some
personal acquaintance in later years with
both Thomas Amory Deblois and Mat-
thias Plant Sawyer, and knows a good
reason why the men laughed at the sally
about "turning the fish into a pack of
cards," — a joke of which Hawthorne
could not see the point. "Plant" Saw-
yer, as he was always called, was a rich
bachelor, who was said to have acquired
much of his wealth as "a votary of
chance," to use his own expression. He
had drawn large prizes in lotteries, and
was reputed a most skillful card-player.
He might well say that "chance had
treated him handsomely." In the ma-
nipulation of cards he had the skill of a
professional juggler; and a similar dex-
terity no doubt he displayed in puzzling
the boys by changing the fish from one
string to the other. The men in the
party knew of his skill with cards, and of
course understood and laughed at the
allusion made by Deblois. About twenty
98

EXTRACTS FROM DIARY

years after the expedition so graphically
described by Hawthorne, Mr. Sawyer,
then an old man, removed to Boston, and
became a State Street broker. He
owned and occupied the mansion at the
corner of Beacon and Park streets. De-
blois was afterward a partner in the law
firm of Fessenden, Deblois and Fessen-
den, the junior partner of which was the
statesman, William Pitt Fessenden. As
to the jews'-harp man, the late Hon. Wil-
liam Goold informed me that he was a
blacksmith named Goodrich, who made
clumsy harps at his forge. If the harps
the Jews hung on the willows were as
large as his, Goold thought "one to a
willow was sufficient ! " In reference to
the invalidism of "uncle Richard," it
may be said that Mr. Manning had been
disabled by a carriage accident, and was
for a long time obliged to get about his
house in a wheel-chair.J
99

POSTSCRIPT

Story of C* HORTLY after the death of Syitimes
William O the following notice of him ap-
Symmes ^^^^^ -^ ^he Georgetown (D. C.) "Cou-
rier." It is full of curious information,
and suggests reasons for the mystery he
observed in communicating the extracts
from the diary he claimed to have in
his possession. I am informed that the
names of persons and places he assumed
as aliases in his detective work are all
recognized at Otisfield as real men and
localities he must have been familiar with
in his youth. In our search for the diary
an appeal was made to the government
detectives, and perhaps this was check-
mated by him by means of his familiar-
ity with that department, of which we
then knew nothing. The obituary notice
is here given in full, as it may help in
the finding of the long-lost book. It was
published early in November, 1871 : —

POSTSCRIPT

"Died at Pensacola, Florida, on the Obituary
28th ultimo, William Symmes, aged sixty- ""^^^
six years. He was a mulatto, bom in
Portland, Maine, his father having been
a white man and a lawyer, the late Wil-
liam Symmes; his mother a pure Afri-
can. His father was in early life a tu-
tor in Virginia, and was never married.
When three years old the son was
adopted by the late Captain Jonathan
Britton, of Otisfield, Cumberland County,
Maine, and by him given a good common
school education. At the age of twenty-
one he became a sailor, following the sea
for twenty-five years, and visiting every
part of the globe. In 1852 he drifted
into California, remaining there eight
years, and getting acquainted with the
late Colonel Lafayette C. Baker, and
was with him, under half a dozen names,
in and about the District of Columbia
during the war. Soldiers and others
will remember the darky who used to
hang around Baker's office, and call him-

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

self at different times by the following
names : ' Asa Hicks/ ' Thad. Turner,'
'Caswell's Corner/ 'Deacon Lovell/ 'Col-
lege Swamp/ 'Deacon Hancock/ etc.
He kept a journal during his connection
with Baker, which will perhaps be a cu-
riosity. His foster father. Captain Brit-
ton, was intimate with the late General
Samuel Fessenden, father of the late
senator, and also with the family of the
Two late Nathaniel Hawthorne ; and Symmes

^TT... "S^'^ *° P^^y "^'^^ William Pitt Fessen-
den and Nathaniel Hawthorne when they
were striplings. He boasted within a
few years that he was the only man at
the seat of government with whom Sen-
ator Fessenden would laugh and joke
familiarly ; and that he and Hawthorne
were the only two white boys and men
who never by word or look offended him
in the matter of his color. Symmes did
not belong to the regular force of detec-
tives, but Baker kept him as a kind of
detective on his own men. The last two

playmates

POSTSCRIPT

years of his life he became a devoted
Methodist, and would repeat by the half
hour hymns from the old 'Bridgewater
Collection,' that he said his foster mo-
ther, Beulah Britton, taught him in his
youth. He was also a constant reader
of the Bible. Poor Symmes has gone.
Since the war he has lived secluded in
Alexandria and Georgetown, not daring
to face openly the enemies he made
under Baker. May he rest in peace."

Of his life as a boy at Otisfield, Robin-
son Cook says : " Billy was reared in
this neighborhood, from the age of three
to twenty years, and was a boy of fair
intellect. He attended school at the old Symmes
schoolhouse near the parsonage, but was '^ "^"^
too full of his joking to make any re-
markable proficiency in his studies.
When he had done going to school he
could write a fair hand, and read and
spell tolerably well."

The fact that General Fessenden was
an acquaintance of Captain Britton may
103

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

account for the adoption of young
Symmes; for Fessenden came to the
Cumberland bar before the death of the
older Symmes, and may have taken an
interest in the orphaned mulatto boy.
His own son, William Pitt, was one year
younger than Symmes, and as they grew
up, they had many opportunities of play-
ing together. Not only did young Fes-
senden often visit the Sebago Lake re-
gion, but Captain Britton represented his
town in the Maine legislature, which
then held its sessions at Portland, the
home of the Fessendens.
His an- Zechariah Symmes, the first of the
cestry American ancestors of the subject of this
sketch, was son and grandson of clergy-
men who suffered in the Marian perse-
cution. He was bom in Canterbury, in
1599, and his father was Rev. William
Symmes, who was ordained in 1588. He
was first a lecturer at Atholines, London,
but, being harassed for nonconformity,
removed to Dunstable in 1625. In 1634
104

POSTSCRIPT

he came to this country in the same ship
which brought the noted Anne Hutch-
inson. He became pastor of the first
church in Charlestown, Massachusetts,
and had for assistant no less a personage
than John Harvard, the founder of the
college which has immortalized his name.
He died in 1671, and for epitaph has this
couplet : —

" A prophet lies under this stone :
His words shall live, though he be gone."

His son, Zechariah, was a graduate of A race of
Harvard, class of 1657, the first scholar '^^^'SJ"»^»
of his class, and was a tutor in the col-
lege for three years. He became first
pastor of the church in Bradford in 1667,
and died in 1707. He is spoken of as a
man of rare ability and great physical
endurance, as he could preach and pray
four or five hours before an audience
of equal "staying power." He was fol-
lowed in the Bradford pastorate by his
son, Thomas, who also graduated at Har-
vard at the head of his class, in 1698, and
los

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

was tutor for three years. He preached
the "election sermon" at the Old South
in 1720. It is said of him that in preach-
ing he magnified his office, "lifting up
his voice like a trumpet, and preaching
with all his might." He raised a mutiny
in his church by insisting that the sing-
ing should be by note and in parts, and
carried his point. The objection was
that the Papists sang by note, but this
and other objections he riddled with
satire. The excitement ran so high, we
are told, that women fainted away when
singing by note was first heard in the
meeting-house. He died in 1725. The
next Harvard graduates in the family
were Timothy, 1733, William, 1750, and
William, Jr., 1780, — this last being the
Portland lawyer, whose ancestors, for six
generations, were Puritan clergymen. It
must be allowed that our colored friend,
William Symmes, fourth of the name,
the playmate of Hawthorne, came of
good stock, and there is no occasion to
106

POSTSCRIPT

wonder that with little schooling he at-
tained the literary skill shown in the let-
ters of his given in this volume. For
three centuries his ancestors of the name
of Symmes were all college graduates.

RICHARD MANNING, of Salem, iTie
the father of Mrs. Hawthorne, -^"""'"^
toward the close of the last century, ac- "j^J^
quired possession of several thousands
of acres of land in Cumberland County,
Maine, mostly in what are now the tOTvns
of Raymond and Casco. He also owned
land in Bridgeton, Westbrook, and Port-
land. At his death this land was not
divided among his family, but in 1813 his
son Robert was made attorney of the
beirs for the management of the estate.
His brother Richard became a resident
jf Raymond and married Susan Dingley, a
daughter of Captain Samuel Dingley, the
miller mentioned in the Hawthorne notes,
ivho was a son of the first settler in the
107

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

town. The management of the Manning
lands was then given to Richard, who
acted as attorney for all the heirs, until
about 1 830. He died in 1 83 1, aged forty-
seven years.

I find by reference to the records in
the registry of deeds in Portland that
between the years of 1813 and 1840,
about twelve thousand acres of land were
sold to settlers, in lots averaging one hun-
Deeds dred acres each. All the deeds given
signed by between the dates mentioned were signed
by Elizabeth C. Hathorne, as one of the
heirs. In all cases her name is spelled
without the " w." In the deeds given in
1820 and 1 82 1, she is described as a resi-
dent of Raymond. In earlier deeds she
is made a resident of Salem, even in
1818, when all the biographies place her
in Raymond. Probably her residence in
the Maine wilderness was not considered
permanent until 1820.

The other heirs of the estate, as shown
in the deeds, were Miriam, Mrs. Haw-

Mrs.
Hathorne

POSTSCRIPT

thome's mother, who lived until 1831 ;
Mary and Priscilla, her sisters, described
as " single women," until Priscilla be-
came the wife of John Dike ; Robert and
Samuel, her brothers, "stage proprie-
tors ; " and Richard Manning, " trader,"
of Raymond. Nearly all the names men-
tioned by Hawthorne in his first note-
book are found in these deeds. Domini-
cus Jordan, the peddler, who told the
ghost story, pp. 77-79, bought no less
than seven hundred acres of the estate
at various times. His wife was Kezia
Dingley, a relative of Hawthorne's aunt,
Susan Manning. The father of unfortu-
nate Henry Jackson, Jr., who was put
" out of the reach of mercy " by having
his mouth kicked open (see pp. 61, 62),
bought one hundred acres of land of
the Manning estate in 1808. The good
Elder Zachariah Leach, who had such
dread forebodings as to the future of
Jackson, was also a purchaser of these

lands.

109

HAWTHORNE'S FIRST DIARY

The Manning brothers owned an im-
portant line of Eastern stages, and the
horses of this line were at the service of
Hawthorne in his joumeyings back and
forth between Salem and his Maine
home.

Served in T X 7ASHINGT0N LONGLEY, men-
TsTz tioned by Hawthorne on page 56,

was an expert drummer and a teacher of
the art, at the time when he came to the
grist-mill. He served as drummer in a
company, enlisted at Waterford, Maine,
in the war of 18 12. After the war he
settled at Raymond, on a lot purchased
of the Mannings on the shore of Panther
Pond. This was in the year 18 17, which
is the probable date of the entry in the
note-book. His son, who now lives in
the house built by his father, informs me
that he remembers the colored man, Wil-
liam S)ntnmes, who called at his father's
house in 1840. He has a more distinct

POSTSCRIPT

memory of him because, as a boy who
had never before seen a black man, he
was frightened. His mother lived in the
family of Captain Jonathan Britton at the
time when Symmes had a home there,
and the sailor came to talk of old times.
He is described as a man of average
height, strongly built, and of dark color
for a mulatto.

The only person I find in Raymond Oneiiv-
who remembers Hawthorne is Hezekiah '"■? '^'"'
Lombard, who was born in i8i6,and was ^^^^
six years old when Mrs. Hawthorne gave
up her residence in the town. He says
she returned to Salem in January, 1822.
He also remembers Symmes, who was
in the vicinity for some years after the
Hawthornes left.

INDEX

Alexandria, Va., 21, 26, 34,

47-
Allen, William, 20.
" Asa Hicks," 102.
Atholines, London, 104.

Baker, Lafayette C, 26, 42, 87,

loi, 102.
Baldwin, Maine, 96,
Berry, Major, 57.
Bewitched Apple-tiee, The, 77-

79-
Bolster's Mills, Maine, 38.
Bowdoin College, 3, X2, 20, 21.
Bradford, Mass., 105.
Bradley, Caleb, 46.
Brandy Fond, 10.
Britton, Mrs. Beulah, 103.
Britton, Jonathan, 24, 25, 55,

83, loz, 102, 103, 104.
Brunswid^, Maine, 12.

Canterbury, Eng., 104.
" Captain Snarl," 82.
" Caswell's Comet," 102.
Charlestown, Mass., 105.
" College Swamp," 102.
Cook, Robinson, 13, 38, 53, 60,

62, 67, 73, I03-
Crooked River, 49.
Cumberland County, 85.

"Deacon Hancock," 102.
" Deacon Lovell," loz.
Deblois, Thomas Amory, 87,

9'i 93-95, 2'-59'
Dickinson, Charles (?), 83, 84,

86, 87.
Dike, Mrs. Friscilla, 18, 109.
Dingley Bay, 7, 10, 52, 96.

Dingley Brook, 7, 10, 80, 87,

96.
Dingley, Captain, 15, 49, 50.
Dingley Islands, 7, 49.
Dingley, Jacob, 46, S3i 54-
Dingley, Joseph, 49, 67.
Dingley, Samuel, 67, 69, 107.
" Doctor Coodle," 82,
Dry Mill Pond, 75.
Dunstable, Eng., 104.

Fessenden, William Pitt, 99,

102, 104.

Fessenden, Samuel, 99, 102,

103, 104.
Fickett, Mr., 86.
Fields, James T., 6.
Frye, Captain, 9.

Frye's Island, 8, 10, 83, 89,
96.

Gay, March, 58.
Gay's Pinch, 75.
Georgetown, D. C, " Courier,"

TOO.

Goodrich, Mr., 99.
Goold, William, 57, 99.
Gorham, Maine, 30.
Gowen, James, 75.
Great Bay, 89.
Great Fond, 49, 51, 80, 89.
Great Rattlesnake Pond, 7.
Griffith, George Bancroft,

29.
" Gulliver's Travels," 83.

Ham, Ben, 68, 71.
Hanson, Mr., 87, 95.
Harvard College, 105.
Harvard, John, 105.

"3

INDEX

Hawthorne's Cave, lo, 51.

Hawthorne, Elizabeth, 16, iS.

Hawthorne, Elizabeth C, 11,
12, X4, 20, 38, 8S, loS.

Hawthorne, Julian, 5, 43.

Hawthorne, Louisa, 19.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, auto-
biographical sketch, 4, 5 ; boy
life, 14; early letters^ 15-21 ;
college life, 20, 21 ; nrst hint
of i£ary, 22, 23 ; meets
Synunes in Liverpool, 26,
31-33; his verses, 29, 30;
change of name, 33 ; receives
note-book, 37 ! time spent in
Maine, 45; studies with Caleb
Bradley, 46 ; extracts from
diary, 49-97 ; sails on lake,
52 ; buys exhausted lamb, 57 ;
criticises Elder Leach, 6z ;
relieves ill-used horse, 68-
73 ; his excursion to Muddy
River Bog, 87-97.

Horsebeef Falls, 30.

How diary was lound, 35, 36.

Hutchinson, Anne, X05.

Images, The, 3, g, 49, 50, 51.
Indian Graves, 29, 33.

Jackson, Henry, Jr., 6z, xog.
Jones, Lemuel, 75.
Jordan Bay, 7.
Jordan, Dominlcus, 77-79, 109.

Knight Tragedy, 29, 31.

Lambard, Mr., 97.
Lathrop, George P., 45, 73.
Leach, Zachanah, 61, 62, xog.
Legend of Bevil^s Sermon, 75,

76.
Little Rattlesnake If'ond, 7.
Little, Thomas, 87, 89, 92, 94,

96,97.
Lombard, Hezekiah, xix.
Long Fond, 92.
Longley, Washington, 56* i^o.
Lumbermen's Raft, 80-S3.

Manning, Miriam, x6, 19, 108.

Manning, Miss, 18, 109.

Manning, Richard, 8, 11, 12,
20, 25, 28, 32» 37* 88, 97, 99.

Manning, Mrs. Richard, 29,
34» 39, 63, 65, 107.

Manning, Richard C, v, 14,
41.

Manning, Robert, 3, 11, 14-17,
19, 107, 109.

March, Reuben, Si, 82.

Mitchell, Jacob,. 58.

" Mr. Higginbotham's Catas-
trophe," 79.

Muddy River, 8, 10, 88, 90.

Muddy River Bog, 87, 90.

Nat's Rock, 8.

Old South, 106.
Otisfield, Maine, 34, 92, 100,
xoz, X03.

Panther Pond, 7, 110.
Patch, John, 59. _
Patch, Capt. Levi, 60.
Fensacola, Fla., 26, loi.
Pike, Dominions, 79.
Portland, Maine, 24, 27, 55,

10 1, 104.
" Portland Transcript," 22, 26,

Presumpscot River, 30,
Fulxiit Rock, 8, 74, 75, 76.

Radoux, Francis, X2, X3, 35,

39» 41.
Rattlesnake Mountain, 7, 33,

52, 89.
Raymond, Maine, x, 3, 6, 11,

rs, ifr-19, 24, 27, 33-35, 40,

50, 107.
Raymond Cape, 6, 15, 961
Ring, Mr., 49, 50, 53.
" Rub-a-dub," 82.

Salem, Mass., 3, 4, xi, x2, X4-

19.
Saturday Pond| 60.

114

INDEX

Sawyer, Matthias Plant, 871
91. 94. 95. 98. ?9.

Scnbner, Col. Eben, 32.

Sebago Lake, 2, 4-101 49, 104.

Shane, Mrs., 56.

Shane, Samuel, 56, 66.

Shaw, Daniel, 29.

Small, Edmund B., 35, 40, 41.

Small's Brook, 75.

Songo River, 10, 49.

Stroudwater, Westbrook, 45.

Symmes, Thomas, 105.

Symmes, Timothy, 106,

Symmes, William, ist, 104.

Symmes, William, 2d, io6.

Symmes, William, 3d, 24, 106.

Symmes, William, 4th, 8, 9,
22-24 ) his first letter to
"Transcript," 27-33; meets
Hawthorne in Salem and
Liverpool, 31; 34 ; second
letter to "Transcript," 35-
39 ; obtains diary, 36 ; ef-
forts to find him, 41 ; he dies
and the book is lost, 43 ;

third letter to " Transcript,**

47, 48; 84, 86, 87, loo-iii.
Symmes, Zechariaii, ist, 104.
Symmes, Zechariah, 2d, 105.

Tarbox, Betsey, 29, 32, 34, 63,

65.
Tarbox Tragedy, The, 9, ig,

29,64, 65.
Tarkill Hill, 75.
" Thad. Turner," 102.
Thomas Fond, 7, 8, 27, 28, 32,

Thompson, Mr,, 82, 83,
Turner, Henry, 59.
Twenty-Fifth Maine, 35.

Watkins, Jacob, 27, 65, 66.

West, Mr., 75, 76.

White, Enoch, 87, 88, 93, 94,

White, Petei\ 49, 50, 51-53. 93-
Windham, Maine, 30, 49, 87.
Windham Hill, 87, 92, 93.
Wood, Mr., 8z.

115

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